Maintaining an aquarium can be both rewarding and time consuming. Successful aquarium maintenance requires both providing an authentic and aesthetic microcosm for the enjoyment of the hobbyist and providing suitable conditions that allows fish, invertebrates, and other aquarium life to thrive. Among these conditions are temperature, salinity (for marine aquariums), and balance of nutrients and toxins. When certain nutrient levels get too high, they can become toxic or promote other undesirable biological processes.
Biological filtration systems have been used for decades as a way to regulate the concentration of nutrients. As an example, fish produce ammonia as waste. Nitrosomona bacteria develop in common biological filtration systems to convert the ammonia into nitrites. While nitrites are not as harmful to fish and invertebrates as ammonia, at higher concentrations they can be. Luckily, the increased levels of nitrites cause other bacteria such as Nitrobacter to thrive within the biological filtration system, as such bacteria ingest nitrites and convert them to nitrates.
Nitrates can be toxic to fish at higher concentrations. They are difficult to remove, and often require partial water changes. Also their presence at high levels has another undesirable effect: it promotes algae growth.
Once algae begins to grow in an aquarium, it will quickly cover every hard surface. Most noticeable and dismaying to the aquarium hobbyist is the growth of algae on the tank glass. Algae growth on glass is both unsightly and interferes with enjoyment of the aquarium.
Certain devices, processes, and filters have been devised that attempt to separately reduce nitrate levels, and control algae growth. While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present disclosure as disclosed hereafter.
In the present disclosure, where a document, act or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provisions; or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which the present disclosure is concerned.
While certain aspects of conventional technologies have been discussed to facilitate the present disclosure, no technical aspects are disclaimed and it is contemplated that the claims may encompass one or more of the conventional technical aspects discussed herein.